She was just 16 years old and had seen the worst face of torture and her life ended in a painful and restless death. Comfort was a word she had never heard of but pain stuck to her like a leech.
Her name was Sylvia Likens and had a disabled sister Jenny Likens.
They were given just a few slices of toast in the morning and a bowl of soup at supper-time. Some writers, mindful of the harsh treatment which followed, have suggested that the girls were being singled out for some kind of starvation diet by their hosts.
Whenever she was in the same room as Sylvia or Jennie, the increasingly vicious 'foster mother' verbally and physically abused them. Later, at her trial, Baniszewski admitted that she hit them so hard that she hurt her own hands. Sylvia became the favourite target of regular punishments that revealed Baniszewski's sadistic nature. Sylvia's bare buttocks were paddled with a rough wooden board which cut her flesh and left scars.
The Baniszewski children were encouraged to assault Sylvia. Their friends were also invited to come to the house and use her as a punchbag. With the 'foster mother' looking on, these juvenile thugs hit and kicked Sylvia and whipped her with any items which came to hand. When she begged Baniszewski to stop them; the depraved creature only laughed and urged her fellow tormentors on to greater levels of abuse.
Baniszewski ordered the children to stub out cigarettes on the girl's arms and hands. Her daughter Paula, drunk on bestial cruelty, punched Sylvia with enough force to break bones in her own hand. After being treated by a doctor and having her hand put into a plaster cast, the Baniszewski girl used the heavy cast to beat Sylvia with even more force.
The girl was stripped naked and forced to dance and perform lewd acts in front of Baniszewski's youthful cronies. Sylvia was made to insert a soda bottle into her vagina on at least two different occasions.Sylvia's crotch and genital area was thumped and kicked so often and so viciously that hardened medical examiners were later shocked by the number of injuries in that region.
A dim-witted neighbourhood boy, Ricky Hobbs, was directed to heat needles and use them to brand the girl's stomach with the words: "I am a prostitute and proud of it." Baniszewski started the lettering and then ordered Hobbs to finish the task. This horrible torture completed, Baniszewski released the full fiendish fury of her nature, beating the girl, slamming her head against the basement wall with such force that Sylvia Likens received the injuries that ultimately extinguished her life.
Despite the protests of Gertrude Baniszewski and her clan, the officer took the girl away and quickly learned the truth. The sadistic 'foster mother' was charged with murder, convicted and given a life sentence. Baniszewski gained a new trial on appeal - but was again convicted and sent back to prison. Though she gave many interviews to writers and journalists from behind bars, she never expressed any genuine remorse. Nor did she ever come close to offering any explanations for her bizarre and cruel acts - to those who sought to discover her reasons, Gertrude Baniszewski would say: "I had to teach her a lesson."
Maybe we wouldn't be subjected to such a torture, but we can surely feel her pain.
R.I.P!!
#Satyam_Bruyat
your disgusting
ReplyDeleteYou should find something better to do instead of saying disgusting things like that.
ReplyDeleteI'm just reading a book about her. God rest her soul
ReplyDeleteI wish someone had saved her from those demons, society and life failed her but hopefully she's happy in Heaven with the angels surrounded by love that only life can envy.
ReplyDeletewho tf would comment such a thing on this story-
ReplyDeletegod erase us please-
I discovered Sylvia's story 2 years ago and I have been never felt so horrified and disturbed by her tragic death, it makes me so sad and mad that nobody helped Sylvia when she was suffering at hands of those demons and waited until she died, not even her sister who saw of what they were doing to her and she should have told someone of what was happening, she went to school every day and she should have told the teachers or principals or other staff members that those demons were hurting Sylvia and if she did then maybe Sylvia would have been saved and those demons get caught in the act but instead she let fear win her over and waited until it was too late and those neighbors who were only feet away from the horror house heard her crying and screaming for help but they didn't do anything because it was a "mind your own business" culture and simply did nothing, our justice system failed Sylvia in every way and all those demons weren't punished severely enough with the death penalty despite the horrifying way Sylvia's death was, not even the demon mother who started it all was only left with 20 years in prison when she should have died along with Sylvia instead of being let out and dying "peacefully" in 1990 being surrounded by her family while Sylvia died all alone in the most horrifying way without her family and left like if she was some inferior thing, she was failed the day she was born until the day she died and she was denied all the love she deserved and she will never grow up and enjoy the things that she wanted to be in life, all because of a bitter old haggard demon and her little sadistic army, I hope Sylvia's death forever stains their soulless images for eternity and that they suffer the same torture a million times as hard and I hope all the rest of the ones involved including her family and the neighbors and the justice system and those who failed her in her short life have all the guilt follow them for eternity, the world was really cruel to Sylvia but she's now in Heaven who gained her angel wings the day she died and that she's surrounded by love and happiness with the angels and flying high as she can and that no pain or evil or those who failed her will get near her again and that she shines like a bright star for eternity and she is forever 16 and beautiful and nobody can take that away. She will always be loved and never forgotten and I will make sure that her spirit and memory is kept alive forever.
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